Gwyneth Paltrow has said her "perspective has been forever altered" after she lasted only four days of a week-long challenge to live on about $29.
The Oscar winner agreed to take part in the Food Stamp Challenge with celebrity chef Mario Batali to raise awareness of how low-income Americans are struggling to survive on their current income.
The actress was given the same amount people get in food stamps as part of an American government welfare programme, to promote the New York food bank that Batali is a member of.
Writing on her lifestyle website Goop, she said she spent around 24 US dollars (#16) because "things like avocados and limes are cheap in Southern California".
The actress tweeted a picture of the healthy but insufficent amount of food that she bought: "This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store—what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week."
The ingredients the actress bought couldn't cover three meals a day for a week but were also calorically impractical for sustaining energy levels and she admitted defeat on the fourth day, confessing that she bought “some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice)."
The actress is continuing to raise awareness over the struggles that many individuals and families face each week on welfare.
Batali, who himself took the challenge with a $31 food allowance, reportedly said he was left "...starving" by the end of the week.
This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store—what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week. pic.twitter.com/OZMPA3nxij
— Gwyneth Paltrow (@GwynethPaltrow) April 9, 2015